Honey is a natural product derived from the digestive conversion of flower nectar to simple sugars by the common honey bee. Honey is composed of glucose, fructose, water, minerals, organic acids, and a small amount of proteinaceous material.
Natural honey is comprised of multiple nutrients including carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals. Honey is comprised of approximately 38.5% fructose and 31.0% glucose.
When ingested as a food, the human body metabolizes fructose to produce energy, carbon dioxide, and water independent of the pancreatic hormone, insulin. Glucose in honey is metabolized in a similar manner, however, the metabolism of glucose requires insulin.
Dietetic products are used by persons either desiring to restrict the number of calories they consume, or by persons who because of metabolic problems such as diabetes, need to restrict both caloric intake and the intake of those carbohydrates which require insulin for metabolism.
Caloric intake may be reduced by ingesting fewer calories, by ingesting products which cannot be digested or are only slowly digested by the body and are therefore eliminated, or by ingesting materials which speed up the transit time of food in the digestive systems and therefore eliminate food which would otherwise be absorbed.
Previous attempts to produce a dietetic low-calorie or reduced sugar honey have generally been unsuccessful due to the incompatibility of traditional thickening agents with the high viscosity and high solids content of honey. Such attempts have produced honey product with undesirable characteristics, including products which are stringy, cloudy, slimy or slippery, and have a low viscosity as compared with natural honey.
It would be of great utility to produce a honey composition having a low caloric content or low insulin-dependent sugar content and having none of the undesirable qualities described above.